If your child has, or you as a young person have, an EHC plan, your local authority (LA) must review it at least once a year. This is to make sure it stays up-to-date and continues to provide the support needed.
At the end of the review, there are only three decisions your LA can make:
- To maintain the EHC plan as it is (not make any changes)
- To change the EHC plan (and say what changes it is proposing), or
- To cease the EHC plan if it thinks it is no longer necessary for it to be in place, following consultation.
You can appeal all three decisions in the SEND Tribunal. You will also have the right to mediation. When making your appeal you can try to get changes made to the EHC plan, even if your LA decided not to make any changes to the EHC plan.
You will have the right to mediation/appeal when your LA:
- writes to tell you the EHC plan is being maintained without changes, or your LA plans to stop it, or
- sends to you the final amended EHC plan, if the decision made by the LA was to the amend the EHC plan.
If your child is, or you are, coming up to a phase transfer (for example, moving from primary school to secondary school, or secondary school to post-16 education), your LA must carry out the review well in advance of the move.
The annual review process
The annual review is the statutory process of looking at the needs, provision and outcomes specified in an EHC plan, and deciding whether these need to change. Understanding what an EHC plan should contain will help you prepare for an annual review.
Your local authority (LA) must complete the first review of your child’s EHC plan within 12 months of the EHC plan being finalised. Subsequent reviews must be completed within 12 months of the previous review. If you are a young person with an EHC plan, then your LA must comply with the same deadlines and carry out the same process set out below.
The following steps must take place in an annual review:
- Your LA must consult with you (and with the school or institution being attended if there is one) about the EHC plan, and take account of your views, wishes and feelings.
- An annual review meeting must take place to discuss the EHC plan.
- Information must be gathered from you as well as from professionals about the EHC plan, and then circulated two weeks before the meeting.
- After the meeting a report of what happened must be written and sent to everyone who went to the meeting or provided information to be discussed.
- After the meeting the LA reviews the EHC plan.
- The LA must notify you of its decision within four weeks of the meeting.
All of these steps – not just the meeting – must be followed in order for an annual review to be completed.
Our annual review checklist contains further information on each of these steps. You can use this resource to check whether the necessary steps are being followed in your annual review.
https://www.ipsea.org.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=225425e9-db7e-4365-9cef-136657a48d30